Project #6 : Tundra Rehab

Much like the 2004 Skandic SUV rehab project that I did a while back, this one has come to me as a runner that needs some imperfections ironed out in order to be a great sled. Utility use is hard work and one bad move is all it takes to do some damage.

The biggest hurdle I'm up against is getting the RER to work again. I need a complete RER secondary for this specific model in order to make it work. The RER module is fine, the engine engages in reverse well, it's just the secondary clutch that is non-RER spec. I suspect that the original owner had a problem with the original secondary and could only find a non-RER unit to replace it with. I will be searching hard for a good used RER Tundra secondary but it will not be easy I'm sure.

The oil injection has been disconnected which is a bit a of a bummer for me, but after investigating, this is a common problem with these engines; the oil pump has a tendency to shake loose from the recoil housing, the mounting holes egg out and the mounting ears eventually crack off. I have another pump ready to install, but so far it looks like the old square-drive oil pump drive shaft is broken off in the MAG end of the crank. Yuck. If I can somehow fish the plastic shaft out, I will re-install the pump and check the 4 mounting screws often.

Standard-fare Tundra wear items are present; the rear of the tunnel is cracked up and requires reinforcing, the welds holding the two footwells to the sides of the tunnel are cracked off, windshield is busted, bumper has a squat in one side, seat needs recovering, etc.

I will probably start at the bumper tomorrow night along with the tunnel repairs, get the welding all done first and then get after the other small items.

All in all, a sled in great shape that may end up being a keeper due to its lightness and fun factor.

Some pics, I believe this thing is a 2004:

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Oh man, I have an ant colony in the seat foam!! LOL

Sprayed the thing down with Raid, watched as the foam started to dissolve...! That stuff is stronger than I thought.

You're gonna feel like a ballet dancer on that thing !

Lots of work done today... bumper straightened & painted, windshield changed, hood plastic welded in two spots, hood vents re-installed, new seat base made and painted, tunnel end braces fabbed and welded, footrests repaired and re-welded, wide skins installed, tunnel painted and I fished out the broken-off end of the oil injection pump that was stuck in the end of the crank. Productive day

Now I'm waiting for a new oil inj pump shaft and two rear idler wheels to match everything up... and of course I am also waiting for the ants to move out of my seat foam

A few pics:

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Here's how I managed to get the end of the oil inj pump shaft out (red hot 5" deck screw, screw in, pull-pull-pull!)

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!!!!RAID!!!! You should have used chocolate.

I had a hairline crack on my SWT chassis last year to LB, just ahead of where you wielded that patch on the the tundra on the tube support that goes from strut housing to strut housing, didn't notice it until the engine was pulled out to change the TC's and belly pan.

I wielded some 1/4" flat bar across for extra support, just had enough clearance between the frame and primary clutch for changing the drive belt after i did that though.


Here's a picture.

Yes, I remember you doing that. I have had to weld just about every strut chassis that I have brought in as a project and yet I haven't even thought to check on my SWT. Thanks for the reminder that my "new" sled is a strutter as well and is subject to the same cracks.

I'm still banking on you to find me an RER secondary for the Tundra. I'm dead in the water here! You doing any berry picking? Get any bakeapples?

I never forgot you on those parts LB, some feller lost one in the bay here last spring if the water wasn't so deep i go get it for ya, 30 fathoms is a little to deep for me though. There is a 550 skandic WT someone left on the rocks, (picture below) take notice the high water mark and drift wood, it's higher up than the windshield

There was more blackflies than bake apples this year bud, not saying there was no berries but the flies was fierce, got a couple of buckets for jam though, berries that is.

LOL I managed to find a Tundra for parts tonight off one of your buddies, Bataiste's son. Good engine, good seat and finally an RER secondary. All I need now is the oil inj. pump shaft and we're done.

Is that Skandic 550WT up for grabs? That has GOT to be a tad salty... !

Here are some pics of the parts sled... almost too good to scrap, but the chassis is rusted to death.

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Well, today was the day that it all came together, but not without some snags.

I found a good used RER secondary a while back and managed to get the thing rebuilt for about $160 by the time all of the sliders and the main garlock bushing was changed. Removin/Installing it was the worst! I had to remove the upper steering column support, remove the carb, unbolt the rear engine mount and tip the engine forward and then practically remove and disassemble the chaincase to get the secondary clutch and stub shaft off! Not having a jshaft is a great feature, but oh man, is that ever a lot of work compared to 1 x M8 bolt and washer on a conventional, jshaft sled.

I reconnected the oil injection today and used a single-carb throttle cable from one of the 440LT's that I scrapped. Oil injection appears to be working well with a new drive gear. I also replaced one of the rear 155mm main idlers in order to have a matched pair back there as well, looks better and the track is aligned real well. I managed to find a new old stock OEM Tundra seat cover from a friend of mine and had that installed with foam (yes, the one with the ants! LOL) on a new, home-made 1/2" oil-painted plywood seat base and it looks like a million bucks. Once my replacement ignition and key shows up, this one is 100% complete. I was really disappointed with the BRP parts costs today though... $108 for a throttle cable from BRP, $19.95 + S&H for one from Royal Distributing. Needless to say I ordered the one from Royal.

The good news in all of this is that my friend dropped off one more perfectly good Tundra chassis to me today. Seeing as I have a good engine, a good track, a good chaincase, a good hood, another good seat and a great set of steel skis from the rusted-out Tundra, I think I'm going to have to build another one, forward only unless I can come across another RER secondary and electrical.

In the meantime I think I'll prep the chassis, swap in the skid, track & chaincase, mount the skis, install the hood and then wait for the RER secondary and electrical to appear before I install the engine. One of these set-up as forward-only is a major bummer IMO considering how great they are with reverse.

Hopefully I'll have some pics tomorrow. Great to work on such a light sled for a change, much easier on the body.

And here's the finished product.

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Waiting for a new throttle cable and ignition and we're 100% complete. Great little sled.

Now to get started on the second one... I should have the bellypan stripped off that and the chassis on the table ready for front-end welding by the end of the week. I'm going to be delayed for a while on this one while I wait for an RER secondary, I'm hoping to score a TUV Expedition 600HOSDI with a blown engine by end of month, should be interesting.

That's another great looking sled , your comment regarding RER hit home with me ! I happened upon an interesting project just recently , same sled with RER ! I have a pretty strong attachment to the 2 Tundras that I currently own and really can't justify a 3rd ! From the looks of it , the motor and secondary should bolt up to my 87 , correct ? I would then complete the project using my 250 and pass it on to one of 3 people I know looking hard for one of these sleds . Here is a look at what is available , you can see that the grips are suffering from post traumatic heat syndrome !
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A better look at the grips ! This might ruin Lshobies day , since I had agreed to send him my spare brake lever for his 503 Elan !
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Here is another view of the sled , I don't see any serious rust peeking out from the edge of the seat , the classic spot
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Woo Hoo, nice find!

I'm not 100% sure if the engine and chaincase from the Tundra II will bolt right up to your 87 Tundra, but it has to be very close if not identical. However, I am very surprised that I have not seen more Tundra II's with 249cc engines in them since the two engines look so similar. Hmmm...

In the meantime, I think that you should scrap the idea of building an RER original Tundra (you will need ALL of the wiring, switches, coils, etc. to do this BTW) and sell me the RER secondary clutch instead!

Those grips are ugly looking, what the heck happened? Sledding in the Bahamas with the grip warmers on bust?!

Are you suggesting that some , or most of the components may have died in the fire ? I do have a Citation secondary that I could drop in this and GO ! PM me your offer and I will take it under consideration If things go well , I may be looking at this in person this weekend , that should give me a better idea of how to proceed . I'm looking at gears for the Touring as well , a quick sale might make it easier on the pocket book .

PM Sent!

Way to leave me in suspense!

thought I could drive the price up !!

The owner will be home to greet me Saturday morning .

I'll have the Road Hammers on 11 when I hit the highway !

we'll be hittin Keller and the Keels pretty early on too

Here are some more pics of the second Tundra project... I have two sleds to build one from.

This one has a good engine, track and hood, but the rest is terrible.


Look at that rust, great track though
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Side Rotted off:
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Look at the mess the builder chassis is in! Yuck!

OhMeSoDirty.jpg

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She has a date with a pressure washer, a bottle of Dawn and a snow brush LOL


Here's an added bonus from the rusted out donor sled. Junk in the trunk! (spare carb)

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On a side note, was looking at these pictues was wondering if you (LB) have a spare carb you are willing to sell. Mo brother needs one for his 88 tundra, not sure if these carbs are a swapable but if so let me know.

Here's the chassis I will build from:

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This sucker needs to be completely stripped w/bellypan removed so that I can weld up the front end. That is going to take a little while.

Mario,

You do the legwork to determine the similarities for me, there's a good link in the Skandic FAQ's to parts diagrams and model years. Go there and see if the carb is the same size, I think it's a VM28 or 30, but I really don't recall.

If the 91 (249) and the 98 (277) has the same size carb, you're laughing. Don't worry too much about the internals.

different carbs I am pretty sure, even early tundras had different carbs from year to year - i think skidoo experimented ever year on them.

!!!You got guts man!!!

Did ya get her? Did ya, did ya?!

Thanks man, I may have to lean on you for some parts later on! Some of these out your way for sure, eh?

It's resting safely above the 45th parallel , more tomorrow , I'm beat !!!

Oh boy . . . where do I begin ?! The sled was waiting for me in the front yard and I could kick myself for not getting photos because it's jammed into the back of my truck , nose first right now .
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Aside from the obvious damage to the grips and the awol hood , this thing is a diamond in the rough . Apparently the original owner had it catch fire in his trailer shortly after buying it and he yanked it out , extinguished the blaze and let it sit outside his garage for a number of years . It then passed to the fellow I bought it from and sat some more . We shot it with gas a it lit right up and purred like a kitten , I doubt that this sled has more than 20 hours on it ! There is a little distortion in the front bumper , so it wasn't babied , but no cracks in the frame or tunnel that I could find . the oil tank is undamaged ( which is above the RER button) , so I'm wondering just how far from operational RER this could be ?

LB , I sincerely apologize for toying with your emotions , but I HAVE to look long and hard at the possibility that I could be making a big step forward by adding this machine to my roster ! The original owner of my 87 LT has just acquired a RER Tundra and I want to put them side by side today to see just how much is needed to resurrect the RER and to gauge his interest in the 87 .

This is all just spit balling right now , so don't give up hope , you will be large in my thoughts while I try to digest all of this .

Here is a look at the area around the air box and RER switch .
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LOL, i just saw this now, too bad about the fire! Looks like a good platform though. Any idea what the distance is between the 2 suspension mounting holes??

That 277 should bolt right in - let me know how it works for you as I am looking for another 277 for one of my 87-88 tundras. should really go nicely - although you might need to gear differently or it might be revving pretty high. the citation top sprocket is a 15T and might work well.

I have a '96 Tundra that looks just like yours. Guess what? Same problems too! Winter before last we had to do the same with the welding etc. Our track kept sliding off to one side. We figured that the tunnel was flexing too much. I like how you reinforced your tail end. Nice job. I may do that to ours. I always figured it was that it had a hard life with my kids jumping it but see it may be a common problem. Jee, maybe I sassed the kids for nothing but they turned out alright in the long run. As far as the oiler, I disconnected mine too as I had just too many problems with it and it's not worth starving the engine of oil because of poor design. Now I save my old boat gas and put in the sled for the winter. We only use it for a little fishing and the grandkids run it around a bit so that works. We got Bigfoot now so the Tundra is just a stand by like our '69 12.3

Oh man, Tundra #2 is in baaaaad shape, this is going to be a huge rehab project. I knew that the chassis was cracked where the frame tube that holds the two strut assys crosses over in the front of the chassis, but I wasn't entirely prepared when I removed the bellypan and the front end came with it! Holy crap, completely broken off

Looks like I'm going to have to do some major chassis rehab before much happens here... hopefully I can steal away for a few more hours tonight and give the chassis (ah, both parts of it :lol ) a thorough pressure washing.

Here are some pics of the mess:

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I would have gotten more done today were it not for a little distraction, I'm sure a lot of you guys are busy with these Fall chores as well:

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Things are progressing along with this project but a it took a lot of time to properly align and weld the front end back onto the chassis. I went to great lengths to ensure that the new bracing would be strong where it needs to be and prevent this kind of thing from happening again.

I also went right through the rear skid, changing any brgs that were suspect and bracing/welding the front torque arm where it was previously broken off. This one is going to be a bit rough, but like a couple of the rougher-looking sleds I have done over the last year, it will probably run like a champ and then some! Rear skid, track and drive axle was all mounted yesterday and the bellypan was also reinstalled. Just waiting for the electrical and secondary clutch to show up now before I can install the chaincase and get on with it.

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Long way to go, but I'm already a long way from where I started.

Drive axle is installed, Summit sidehiller skis installed, chaincase assembled, secondary clutch installed and ready to go.

I have the wiring harness roughed out and I am going to re-assemble the engine electrics tonight. Starting to get sick of this one now, been dragging on too long and needs to be out of my garage! One more day and she'll be running, then I just need to slap the hood, seat and tank back on.

Many thanks to Tommc56 for the parts trade!

You should make a super tundra out of it. 377 or maby a 503.
I see you in a Diesel the other day..

LOL ya, would be nice, but the last swap I did I kind of regretted it... it turned out great, but now I would like to have that old 500F as a spare sled.

Yes, you saw me in a 3500... temporary patch, but it is suiting me wayyyy too well. Nice truck, even if it is a Dodge

Don't spend too much time in a diesel (especially a dodge lol) you wont want to get in a gasser again.

Great progress tonight... once I figured out that I had the coils wired backwards I was good to go

Runs like a champ, changes from rev/forward perfectly, kill switch/ignition/tether all work, now I need to wire in the brake light plunger and give the hood a general cleanup. Hope to have the first ride this weekend if the rain stays away.

All done, test ride today worked out great

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Even got the brake lamp plunger and reverse alarm to work today... throttle is a little stiff though, carb needle is not perfectly straight by what I can see, may have to order a new one. In the meantime, she goes like stink!

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I enjoyed reading this thread. Looks good, LB.
I just rebuilt a Tundra seat - new cover, new plywood base. Was surprised to find so much moisture trapped under the seat. Wonder if I should take the seat off during summer storage.
For the new seat base, I used a piece of plywood I had on hand, but it was a tad thicker (closer to 1/2" vs the 3/8" original). This caused a bit of trouble when mounting back under the front keepers and also the rear bolts now didn't poke through the tunnel enough. Live and learn! I put some solid stain on the plywood to keep the rot/mildew down.